


Always Further All Uphill

by jehane18



Series: West End Men [1]
Category: Les Misérables RPF, Sheytoons (Band)
Genre: Asexual Enjolras, Best Friends, Bluegrass, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, Les Miserables 25th Anniversary DVD, M/M, Pining Grantaire, Porn Battle, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 21:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6393631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane18/pseuds/jehane18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ramin shows up on Hadley's doorstep to rehearse. (2010, Les Mis 25th Anniversary-era.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Further All Uphill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coneyislandbaby](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=coneyislandbaby).



> So many beta thanks to [Miss M](http://archiveofourown.org/users/missm) and [LookAnotherNote](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LookAnotherNote/profile).

“We're never going to get the bridge right,” said Hadley and pushed his acoustic away.

Whatever had possessed him to think that he and Ramin could keep composing in this unholy combination of Broadway and bluegrass, he had no idea. Today, the wide wheat fields and craggy Appalachian terrain seemed like a remote and distant country - deep roots and bedrock to another musician, but not to a boy from crumbling red-brick Berkshire. They had their work cut out for them to just make sense of those rural rhythms, and times like this it seemed they might never get raw and authentic enough.

Across the room, perched on Rosalie's easy chair, Ramin shrugged. They'd been at it for hours, ever since Ramin had pitched up on Hadley's doorstep with takeout and an easy smile on Hadley's rest day. The afternoon sunlight haloed his dark head, making him look like a icon of himself. 

“Work on anything enough and we’ll get there eventually,” he said, which was Ramin’s general approach to work, and his entire life.

Hadley sighed: thing was, he knew Ramin meant every word. The man was immune to frustration and many things that plagued lesser mortals. It was as if some force of nature had dropped him fully-formed in this package of incredible hotness and talent and humility on the grimy cobblestones of Shaftsbury Avenue, and into Hadley’s startled arms. 

Ramin hadn't the bone-deep history with bluegrass either. His cheekbones and dark eyes were from Persia, his accent rounded quasi-Vancouver; his musical instincts a hotchpotch of influences that he'd managed to turn into whole cloth by sheer hard work and the curious alchemy of genius. He was the only musical polymath Hadley knew. When he'd sung that first song for Hadley, Hadley had heard the true regional notes of Appalachian plains in Ramin's voice, that dissonant, authentic lonesome sound that cut to the quick, and Hadley had no idea how it had gotten there. He'd be jealous, except that it was impossible to be jealous of Ramin. 

"Law of diminishing returns, mate. We need to call a truce on this song for now, otherwise we’re going to lose the war. Let’s take a break.”

Ramin set aside his own guitar. “We could work on something else?” he suggested, flipping the page on his notepad.

Always that work ethic. The boy didn't stop working; he'd taught himself how to read music and to play three instruments from scratch. When they'd first started the band he'd taught himself how to flat-pick a banjo like Joe Carr, how to write harmonies in a classic vocal stack, how to buck-dance, even, so they could better understand the country rhythms of the music that they couldn't stop writing and singing every night. 

Mandy had liked the buck dancing, like Mandy adored everything about Ramin, and Rosalie couldn't stop laughing – there was something inherently funny about that urbane West End body disporting itself in the folksy paces of the pastoral dance – but for some reason Hadley didn't laugh. 

It wasn't usual for him to throw in the towel before teatime. Perhaps the musical frustration was making him crankier than normal, and he hadn't seen Ramin in ages. His boy had been busy behind the mask, was in all kinds of demand these days; producers were in love with his handsome face and spectacular tenor and the leading-man sexual charisma on- and off-stage that he carried with him wherever he went. He texted and emailed, of course, but it wasn't the same as playing against him every evening and being able to curl up with him every night.

Still, Ramin could show up on his doorstep after days or months away and know that everything always be the same between him and Hadley. Hadley knew that too, as sure as breathing. 

"More work? Sure. Let me just put on some tea. What did you have in mind?"

"We could start running lines on Les Mis," Ramin said, and started to rummage in his satchel.

Hadley snorted. Rehearsals for the 25th Anniversary Concert didn't start until next month. "Teacher's pet. They said they only needed Grantaire on set on Week Two, and _you_ can sing Enjolras with your eyes closed."

"Good to get a head start," Ramin said, surfacing with the sheet music, which he waved invitingly at Hadley. "Besides, I don't want to get overconfident, you know. Still lots to learn."

There was that all too familiar look in Ramin's eye, tantalising under the shock of dark hair. Well, that was one way to deal with his musical frustration.

Hadley took the outstretched sheet music from his hand, trying not to grin. "You were born ready to learn. Get over here, then, I thought you wanted to run lines?"

"I do," said Ramin, depositing himself on the arm of Hadley's sofa and smiling Enjolras' warm, wide, entirely commanding smile down at him. "We could take it from Enjolras' solo at the ABC café. _'The time is near, so near/it's stirring the blood in their veins...’_ "

Under Ramin-as-Enjolras' fond, brilliant stare, Hadley felt a tug of yearning that was decidedly in character. He looked away with some difficulty, tried to find his place in the score.

"Right," he said, then, "Marius enters, et cetera, and your line - _'Marius, you're late'_ , and Joly's line, and then Grantaire goes, _'Some wine and say what's going on'_ , and here imagine me gesturing to Marius with my wine bottle of ill repute."

Ramin smiled. "And Marius' line - " and his mobile features temporarily assumed the stunned, lovestruck countenance of the youngest Pontmercy, and he grasped hold of the front of Hadley's jumper, " _'- a ghost you say? a ghost, maybe/she looked just like a ghost to me/one minute there and she was gone._ ' Now, you."

"Just so you know, if Nick Jonas grabs me like this, I am going to smack him one," said Hadley, grimly, but he took Ramin's hand as he said, "So I roll my eyes at Nick and, ' _I am agog! I am aghast/Is Marius in love at last?/I have never heard him `ooh' and `aah'._ ' "

"Mm. Don't give Nick such a hard time, Grantaire actually likes the kid," Ramin said. He kissed Hadley's hand, and began to sing in earnest. 

_"It is time for us all to decide who we are_  
_Do we fight for the right to a night at the opera now_  
_Have you asked of yourselves what's the price you might pay_  
_Is it simply a game for rich young boys to play_  
_The color of the world is changing day by day_..." 

Despite himself, Hadley felt his breath stop in his throat. Ramin's voice washed over him in a swelling, passionate wave. In that instant, he felt as Grantaire would have felt: he would have followed this man into the jaws of Hell. 

Some of the adoration must have found its way into his face, because Ramin smirked and slid from the arm of Hadley's sofa into Hadley's lap, a warm and familiar weight. He put his hands around Hadley's neck and sang the chorus softly into the top of his head.

"I'm not doing Nick's line," Hadley murmured, and pulled Ramin down to kiss him. 

God, he'd missed this, Ramin in his arms and straddling his thighs and kissing back. Enjolras burned with fire for no one save Patria; he would never have been able to return Grantaire's love, and Hadley had never been more grateful for his own lot. How difficult it would be to be helplessly in love with a graven marble symbol of liberty and freedom, wearing its crimson flag like a burial shroud. So much easier that his love was human, this sweet man who had so much love for his beautiful wife and family and everyone in his life. Who loved his best friend, too, and wanted to kiss him and collaborate with him and share his talents with him, as well as having languid, laughing, needy sex with him when time and wives and understanding girlfriends permitted.

This sweet man, who casually unzipped Hadley's fly and pulled his erect prick out of his underwear and said, "Really? No quip about being struck to the bone in a moment of breathless delight?"

"Really depends on where you're going with this – " Hadley started, ending on a choking sound as Ramin slid down his body and pulled his jeans with him and took him into his mouth, "– fine, count me breathlessly delighted. Ramin – "

"...Too much talking," Ramin said, sternly, articulating around Hadley's cock. He would've been unintelligible to anyone else, but Hadley, leaning back, going boneless under Ramin's mouth as he put that unstoppable work ethic to its best possible use, understood every word. 

He'd missed this, too, so much; the libretto Ramin's rough tongue traced on his flesh, the torn sounds he made when he sucked him down, the way Ramin's steady gaze never left his face as he worked on Hadley, looking up through the ridiculous lashes that would have powered the entire porn industry of 1830s Paris. Enjolras on his knees would never have looked this wanton, this debauched with something as lewd as giving a loved one pleasure. 

He was usually inclined to let Ramin know how he felt, also, to want to lie back and prolong this luxurious gift his friend was giving him, so generously and after so long, but he could feel the tremors start in his thighs, the pounding of his pulse in his groin, his frantic heartbeat in his ears, and knew he couldn't last much longer.

"Ramin," he panted, "you know I'm close, you better," and tried to tug on the dark hair; Ramin's upper register would be a wreck tomorrow. Ramin winked – of course he knew, he could taste how close Hadley was – and didn't pull off; he twisted his wrist and took Hadley deep into his throat, and there was absolutely no way to hold back from the deluge. 

"Yeah, that's it," Ramin tried to say, albeit muffled by Hadley groaning and spending helplessly down his throat. 

Sliding back in his seat, Hadley felt weightless, shattered, like his bones had turned to air. He would've felt embarrassed at how a short time it'd taken – Rosalie would have teased him for his lack of stamina, and when Mandy got to hear about it she'd snicker too – but there was nobody like Ramin, he got to him every single time.

"So much for running lines," Ramin said eventually, when they got their breath back and Hadley pulled him up into his lap. His mouth was red and wet, his hair tousled from Hadley's fingers, but his voice didn't sound wrecked at all. "Can't say I'm not surprised."

"Thought you were working on your overconfidence," Hadley said. He realised he was smiling ridiculously, like a lovestruck 19th century virgin of the first order, but at this point Ramin could suck his brain and writing ability out of his prick and he wouldn't care.

"No overconfidence in this," Ramin grinned. "You've never been able to resist me, Had."

"Truth, that." Hadley pushed up the hem of Ramin's shirt, feeling the warm slide of muscles under the bare skin. "Okay, then, not resisting at all. Have your way with me, whatever you want."

"What I want is to keep going with the lines," Ramin said, teasingly, climbing off Hadley so he could pull his jeans and underwear all the way off his legs. "We could build up to your big number. And then Grantaire glares at Enjolras, angry because Enjolras doesn't understand, and gets ready to storm off, and Enjolras stops him, like this – " and Ramin reached down to cup Hadley's face.

"Don't think that's the right direction for the character," Hadley said, the warmth of Ramin's fingers even more unsettling than the meaningful bulge in the front of Ramin's pants. "Only hard-on that boy ever had was for France."

"Not even when he can finally see how much Grantaire loves him?" Ramin leaned in again, kissed him gently. "No, I know, that's not the right motivation for him. I couldn't do that, though." 

"Better rehearse more, then," Hadley murmured, though he knew what Ramin meant. People loved him, and he loved them back, that was his gift. Ramin would play the perfect Enjolras, but the role he was born to play would be that good man, Jean Valjean. He just needed to get enough years on him. He had time, and Hadley would get to see it.

Hadley pulled himself together, put himself back into the scene. "See, here, Enjolras takes hold of him with passionate friendship. And pity – even though he can't love Grantaire back, his heart's bleeding for him, right? And Grantaire does this … " And Hadley put his hand at the nape of Ramin's neck, cradled it with the years of pent-up feeling that Grantaire had finally allowed himself to show to Enjolras now they were about to die, now he was going to lose him forever. 

Maybe there was some of Hadley's feeling in there too. Maybe. 

He knew one day he'd lose Ramin, the same way he'd lost himself in him from the moment they had shared a stage together. There would be distance, and years, other roles and other lovers – Shakespeare always brought out the stage slut in him, as both Rosalie and Ramin knew. One day what they'd be left with would be friendship, and memories of their love, and that would be enough; it was sheer greed to want anything more from life and love than the part of himself Ramin could offer.

But that day was not this day.

Ramin put his hand over Hadley's; in his shining eyes Hadley could see the years stretch out ahead of them. "Perfect motivation. Let's use that."

"You know I will," said Hadley, and pulled Ramin to him again.

**Author's Note:**

> For coneyislandgirl’s PBAM 2016 prompt: _RPF (Broadway) Ramin Karimloo/Hadley Fraser, [any]_ , [here on dw](http://pbam.dreamwidth.org/5608.html?thread=221672#cmt221672).
> 
>  The song in the first part of the story is ["Losing"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc30IuGGYQo) (Ramin Karimloo, Robert Hadley Fraser, copyright 2013); the title is from the [verse](http://no1lyrics.com/song/losing-419790) that Ramin's recorded version omits: _You don't think I fit the bill/Don't know if I ever will/Always further all uphill/But I know I love you still_. I wrote this off of the look on Had’s face when he sings the missing verse,from 2:40.


End file.
